Life Sciences
clock | August 25, 2008How 'Secondary' Sex Characters Can Drive The Origin Of Species:
The ostentatious, sometimes bizarre qualities that improve a creature's chances of finding a mate may also drive the reproductive separation of populations and the evolution of new species, say two Indiana University Bloomington biologists.
Elephant Legs Are Much Bendier Than Shakespeare Thought:
Throughout history, elephants have been thought of as 'different'. Shakespeare, and even Aristotle, described them as walking on inflexible column-like legs. And this myth persists even today. Which made John Hutchinson from The Royal…
tetrapodzoology | August 25, 2008
I have not forgotten that 2008 is Year of the Frog: if you have, or if you didn't know this, please go back to December 2007 and read the explanatory article here. Some of you will also recall the EDGE project (EDGE = Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered), and here we look at an anuran that's one of many on the EDGE list.
Myobatrachids, or southern frogs, or Australo-Papuan frogs, include some of the most incredible and bizarre of anurans. The Turtle frog Myobatrachus gouldii looks like a toy, is apparently sometimes mistaken for a baby turtle, and is one of just a few anuran…
clock | August 23, 2008With Skate Eyes, Scientists Peer Into Human Disease:
Paradoxically, the photoreceptor cells in our retinas release more of their neurotransmitter, glutamate, in the dark, when there is nothing to see, than they do in the light. This is doubly surprising since although glutamate is a major signaling molecule in the retina and throughout the central nervous system, it is also a potent cytotoxin that, in large doses, can kill nearby cells.
New Algorithm Significantly Boosts Routing Efficiency Of Networks:
A time-and-money-saving question shared by commuters in their cars and networks sharing…
tetrapodzoology | August 22, 2008
Well, what an interesting time I've had. Firstly, many thanks to everyone who left a comment - however silly or clueless - on the 'novel Mesozoic archosaur' I posted here a few weeks ago. As those in the know correctly stated, the cartoons depict the Brazilian Cretaceous theropod Irritator challengeri in its original guise as a gigantic flightless pterosaur. Now known without doubt to be a spinosaurine spinosaurid (Sues et al. 2002), Irritator was - astonishingly - first published (Martill et al. 1996) as a coelurosaur and as part of Tom Holtz's Bullatosauria (a since-disbanded…
clock | August 22, 2008Face Recognition: Nurture Not Nature:
Researchers have discovered that our society can influence the way we recognise other people's faces. Because face recognition is effortlessly achieved by people from all different cultures it was considered to be a basic mechanism universal among humans. However, by using analyses inspired by novel brain imaging technology, researchers at the University of Glasgow have discovered that cultural differences cause us to look at faces differently.
Manes, Trains And Antlers Explained: How Showy Male Traits Evolved:
For Charles Darwin, the problem of the…
laelaps | August 21, 2008Here it is, at long last, my take on the first part of The Genius of Charles Darwin. I've included each of the parts available on YouTube and recorded the running time to which each of my comments applies. This may require some scrolling if you're playing the home game. Now that I think of it, it would have been fun to do a Rifftrax-style commentary on each episode, but I don't have the means or know-how to pull that off. I'll also cover parts 2 & 3 in the days to come, but (as I've heard) the very beginning is a very good place to start.
False facts are highly injurious to the progress…
pharyngula | August 21, 2008Here follows a brief account of my sojourn in the Galápagos Islands, just to give you all a rough idea of what I was up to all this time. I've tossed in just a few pictures to illustrate what we experienced; I'm planning to dole out the rest a little bit at a time, each week. I took a lot of pictures, and I was a real piker compared to a few other people on the trip — I'm thinking that if I use mine and some of the other photographs people took, if I post one a week, I'll be able to keep the blog going for about 3800 years.
This cruise was organized by the James Randi Educational Foundation,…
evolvingthoughts | August 20, 2008SPECIAL NOTE:This page and its subordinate pages will no longer be updated. See the new page at my new blog for the live version, and change all your subscriptions. Thank you.
This is a list of the Basic Concepts posts being put up by Science Bloggers and others. It will be updated and put to the top when new entries are published. If you are not a Scienceblogger, email me and let me know of your post, or someone else's. If you want suggestions for a topic to write on, just ask.
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Genes and Genomes
Gene by…
clock | August 19, 2008There are 45 new articles in PLoS ONE this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites, including the first one which tests one of Darwin's own hypotheses:
Resource Competition Triggers the Co-Evolution of Long Tongues and Deep Corolla Tubes:
It is normally thought that deep corolla tubes evolve when a plant's successful reproduction is contingent on having a corolla tube longer than the tongue of the flower's pollinators, and that…
evolvingthoughts | August 18, 2008
One of my claims is that religion proper arose along with the settlement in sedentary townships made possible by agriculture. The reason why this is religion, and not, say, the shamanic "religions" of nomadic tribes, in my view, is that in the latter, people are all related closely enough to be sure to whom to offer assistance in hard times with the expectation of mutual support later. The crucial role of religion proper, I think, is to mark out those who one can expect aid from, because they have demonstrated the "costly signaling" religion requires (a view of Richard Sosis and colleagues…
pzminion | August 18, 2008Guest Blogger Danio:
The time has come to delve into the retinal component of Usher syndrome. In Part II, I briefly described the results of protein localization studies, in which most members of the Usher cohort were found at the connecting cilium of the photoreceptor and at the photoreceptor synapse. The following diagram summarizes these findings:
Usher protein localization in photoreceptor cells. From Reiners, et al. 2006
So, as we saw in the ear, proteins with the equipment for physically interacting with one another are gathering in specific places, and thus multi-protein complexes…
gregladen | August 18, 2008
The Shy Albatross
A study of trawl fishing in South Africa suggests that around 18,000 seabirds may be killed annually in this fishery, highlighting trawl fisheries as a major threat to seabirds, especially several species of albatross already facing a risk of extinction.
Published in the journal Animal Conservation, the study was based on scientists monitoring catches on 14 different vessels, operating in the Benguela Current, off South Africa; one of the main hotspots for seabirds in the Southern Hemisphere. The vessels were trawling for hake, and the majority of bird deaths were a result…
grrlscientist | August 18, 2008tags: Birds in the News, BirdNews, ornithology, birds, avian, newsletter
Orange phase Dusky Lory, Pseudeos fuscata.
Image: John Del Rio. [larger view].
Birds in Science News
Ever since Darwin, evolutionary biologists have wondered why some lineages have diversified more than others. Over 20 years ago, Jeff Wyles, Allan Wilson, and Joseph Kunkel proposed that big brains might favor adaptive evolutionary diversification in animals by facilitating the behavioral changes needed to use new resources or environments, a theory known as the behavioral drive hypothesis. When these authors…
pharyngula | August 17, 2008Since it has been a long time since I contributed any content to Pharyngula…here's something. I was asked to give a brief talk on the ship, so I've tossed my written draft below the fold. With these short talks I like to write the story first, but when I get up on the stage and actually perform it, I don't bring notes or anything like that, so what is actually said follows the structure of what I wrote, and some of the wording comes through, but it tends to be rather different. Probably a lot different —I know I extemporized a fair bit on the last half. This is all you get until I've had a…
clock | August 15, 2008Snooze Button For Body's Circadian Clock:
We may use the snooze button to fine-tune our sleep cycles, but our cells have a far more meticulous and refined system. Humans, and most other organisms, have 24-hour rhythms that are regulated by a precise molecular clock that ticks inside every cell. After decades of study, researchers are still identifying all the gears involved in running this "circadian" clock and are working to put each of the molecular cogs in its place. A new study by Rockefeller University scientists now shows how two of the key molecules interact to regulate the clock's…
grrlscientist | August 15, 2008tags: AMNH, American Museum of Natural History, horses, special exhibits, SciBlings in NYC 2008
And God took a handful of South wind and from it formed a horse, saying:
"I create thee, Oh Arabian.
To thy forelock, I bind Victory in battle.
On thy back, I set a rich spoil
And a Treasure in thy loins.
I establish thee as one of the Glories of the Earth...
I give thee flight without wings."
-- Ancient Bedouin Legend
Trotting Horse Mount
This skeleton of Lee Axworthy, the first trotting stallion to break the two-minute mile, was mounted by Samuel Harmsted Chubb, an anatomist and research…
tetrapodzoology | August 13, 2008As a kid, among my most favourite books were those of the Casa Editrice AMZ's Animal Life and The Private Lives of Animals series, first published in Italian during the late 1960s and translated into English during the 70s. There are loads of these books, and they all follow the same format: a big painting of the featured animal on the left (with text and a 'Did you know?' feature), and then little paintings reconstructing aspects of daily life on the right. The art is often wonderful, and the poses and scenes from these books have often been faithfully copied by many less gifted artists.…
revere | August 13, 2008The Bush administration wants to slow walk worker protection regulations, even when required by law, through the use of additional layers of review by the Office of Management and Budget. We wrote about this recently here (and see Celeste Monforton's excellent work at The Pump Handle). But let's be fair. The Bush administration doesn't always want to slow up rule making. At least not when wealthy land developers or their cronies in federal agencies are concerned:
The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction…
clock | August 12, 2008There are 57 new articles in PLoS ONE this week. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:
How Do Humans Control Physiological Strain during Strenuous Endurance Exercise?:
Distance running performance is a viable model of human locomotion. To evaluate the physiologic strain during competitions ranging from 5-100 km, we evaluated heart rate (HR) records of competitive runners (n = 211). We found evidence that: 1) physiologic strain (% of…
sb admin | August 12, 2008The Bush Administration wants to make it easier for federal agencies to get around the Endangered Species Act. The Washington Postâs Juliet Eilperin explains:
Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.
But how is, say, the Department of Transportation…